More Thoughts on Saints Game

• My first point is put #1 here for a reason (and it’s rare for me to start out w/something like this): Drew Brees is the best QB in the NFL by a quite a bit. Right now, Kurt Warner is up there as is Peyton Manning. But nobody can read defenses like Brees. On a huge number of plays, he got rid of the ball so fast that even the Giants or Steelers wouldn’t have gotten to him. In fact, I would go so far as to say, I don’t think many teams would have beaten the Saints last night. Into the 3rd quarter, the sense only grew that we would have to play a mistake free game just to keep up, let alone win. That is one extraordinarily confident offense.
• Brees and the Saints may have read Packergeeks before the game. Yes, Lance Moore hurt us and Colston had one long TD catch, but only 7 passes went to WRs. A majority of the passes (especially 3rd down back-breakers) went to TEs and RBs:

Watch the short-medium passes to Jeremy Shockey, Billy Miller, Deuce McAllister and Pierre Thomas. Against our aggressive style of cornerback coverage, many offenses prefer to throw short check-down passes to players who aren’t WRs. QBs already know that the timing of many WR patterns will be disrupted by the aggressive Packer DBs right at the line of scrimmage. So, I think that may explain in good part, why tight ends, FBs, RBs in the flat etc, seem to be very popular targets for teams opposing us. Chillar, Hawk, Bigby, Collins – that’s you.

• Atari Bigby was horrible. It seems like his instincts are a bit rusty from his time away due to injury. I know he was concerned about covering the TEs on several plays, but on Lance Moore’s TD and on Pierre Thomas’ running TD in the 4th quarter, Bigby was out of position and cost us 7 points almost by himself. Very bad game.
• It’s amazing – I’m pretty sure that we played much of the game using the 4-2-5 line-up that worked so effectively against Indy and Chicago. I agree with Brother Steve, Hawk’s positioning seemed off, like he was a step behind, and Bibgy’s play was so bad. I almost wonder if the rest of the pass coverage group was left to compensate for their shortcomings (though Woodson, Collins also weren’t stellar either).
• Agree with Brother Steve that Bob Sanders doesn’t seem to be great at making in-game adjustments. Now, I’m less critical of Sanders than others as I think he’s grown and improved overall. But last night, it’s hard to argue that he just didn’t get it figured out. (The only weak argument I could come up with is personnel-based).
• McCarthy’s on-side kick was actually something I even questioned – and this from someone who would on-side kick on most kick-offs. The timing of it felt wrong. While McCarthy may have figured it was so hopeless defensively and Brees may well have driven the team down for a TD with a long field, with a short field, there was a 100% he’d drive them down for a TD. I actually would have kicked long there.
• Why does Grant just get benched when we fall behind? We have to be about the only NFL team who just benches our #1 RB when we fall behind. It’s interesting because I love the 4-5 WR sets, but last night, I think we went to them way too much. When we abandon the backfield completely, 4-5 WR sets become incredibly easy to defend. By the 4th quarter the Saints were rushing 3 and dropping 8 into coverage because they knew we weren’t going to run. Jackson was in there for a few of the plays, but many were empty backfield. I just don’t think Grant should have been on the bench from mid 3rd quarter on.
• Will Blackmon is a stud.
• Many of us want Aaron Rodgers to succeed. In reading many blogs/articles out there, especially after he has a bad game, I find it very interesting how unwilling most folks are to pin ANY blame on the guy. This actually isn’t too different from how many writers and fans treated a certain former Packer QB. Just this morning The Big Unit at WTMJ seemed to give Rodgers a pass by barely mentioning his play and just focusing on the defense. Yes, the D was terrible and that was a big part of it, but so was Rodgers. I think it’s very important that when he plays badly, he’s held accountable for it and ripped for it – fair is fair. The bottom line is that he threw 3 picks in a game when we couldn’t afford those mistakes.
• Now can people see why I thought it was ridiculous that jsonline wrote an entire article about the importance of protecting the ball and not throwing picks the day of a huge game? Though I don’t think they actually deserve blame for his picks, I do think that sometimes, in a subtle way, speaking psychobabble here, having something like this discussed in detail days before a game may even slightly raise the level of consciousness for Rodgers a bit which doesn’t help. Think about this analogy: you’re on the tee hitting to a green surrounded by water. Moments before your shot a reporter comes by to talk about how you have been very good this year at not hitting the ball in the water. So, you step up to the tee and of course your mind is saying “don’t hit it in the water, don’t hit it in the water, don’t hit it in the water”. You hit it in the water. It’s called “Focus Negative” (my term, just coined it). I’m overstating here I know, but still that should have been a bye week article.
• Despite my grade for Rodgers of a C- last night, I must say, I LOVED the fact that he pasted Jason David after that pick. Lots of QBs adopt the chicken shit mentality after they throw a pick.
• This is a game that we simply have to forget immediately. Again, we caught Drew Brees on a night when I’m not sure any defense could have disrupted his rhythm. If I were coach McCarthy, I would have told all players after the game that they had a mandatory party on Bourbon Street last night with a 6 beer minimum -to help them all forget about what happened. We need to look forward asap because we have a couple winnable games coming up and I don’t think we’re out of this thing yet. Yes, the winner of Bears/Vikings next week goes to 7-5 (of course, unless they tie) and would appear to make it more difficult. But we get a win next week against Carolina and we’re right back in it. Then we have Houston at home – another winnable game. And, remember that we have a pretty good divisional record right now and would do OK head-to-head for tiebreakers.